If how you view life and life events determines your reality then this reality is in need of a serious makeover. Here we have been made into clowns in a never-ending circus where the shows go on and on and the makeup and masks never come off. Pathetically, we the spectators willingly and happily continue to pay for the peanuts and the popcorn as well as for every ticket to each add-on show provided without desiring to see back stage. Should we become tired of the pomp and glitter and desire to rest or worse, to leave, we are punished beyond measure. The drone circus police ensure that no one escapes for the Ringmasters demand our attention and by their self-proclaimed status as our gods, they will have it. But there is more, much more than the lights, the glitter, the colourful balloons and the underpaid performers that mesmerize our senses. We must want to see it and understand the power that lies within each of us to turn it all off.

We initially exist without fear but the Lion-tamer makes sure we know what it means. The Bearded-lady and Monkey boy reminds us to look at ourselves and know that while it is humorous to look at the freaks, we definitely don’t want to be one of them. We dare not step outside of the created normal because there lies nothing for us but to be freaks in the show. It is the clowns job to make us laugh at what we see and not take anything seriously. subliminally, we know we don’t want to be in their ranks either for to be laughed at means we will never be taken seriously by those we don’t respect or can barely stand. The animals, chained and trained, leaves us in awe at the owners ability to tame the wild. In this too we understand that we must also play the parts that we were trained for. Should we decide otherwise, like the dancing bear that no longer wants to perform, we will disappear without a trace. There will only be few to question and mourn our disappearance but that too will fade from memory.

There in the centre circle, the Ringmaster stands as MC, hypnotically ensuring that we hang on his every word. He has learned his job well as master manipulator setting up every act so that the spectator is dazzled and sees only what is meant to be seen. For only then, can the hired Thief make his way through the blinded crowd picking every purse and pocket that is after we have paid for all that is possible. Just outside the confines of the circus, the would be owners stand in the darkness at the midnight hour, lining their pockets elevating themselves further and further from the masses or so they believe. The howling wind preceding the approaching storm is not enough to deter their site from the wealth that is to be made. The destruction that lies in its path will be all-consuming. Very little if anything will survive. The few inside the circus tent that sees through it all also understands the greatest joke outside of the performing Jesters, that to see truth is to be confined and tortured by it.

There is no doubt that uncertainty plagues the conscious soul. As contemplating every possible move in a chess match against an unknown opponent is a waste of both ones energy, thought and time so is the fear and anxiety that consumes regarding that which is not known to us.

It is said that the only thing that is certain is Death and Taxes however, that is a very Humanistic approach to understanding this aspect of the human condition. As we are much more than the sum total of our parts, so is everything that comprises that which surrounds us and permeates through us. Everything both in part and in its totality equates to balance throughout known and unknown creation. What we find to be “certain” to us must be off-set by that which is “uncertain”.

To be consumed by uncertainty and the accompanying fear is to ignore the fact that it is a necessity of life that must be embraced. Accepting that “what will be, will eventually be” regardless of our action or inaction enables us to live in balance with the here and now giving rise to clarity of thought and purity of action.

Sipping on Redd in bed with Santitas by my side can’t ease the pain. Nor does the initial euphoria felt when the mobile beeps notification only to realise that it is the senseless communication that is the addiction.

Another day in a contemplative state pondering what’s this life for. Vivid paint stares back at me in the dark from incomplete works, the mirror of a myriad of past emotions from Vino in Veritas. Trying to find that balance between “what is” and “what is not” consumes both the conscious and subconscious mind alike.

Was Thoth this mired in self-reflection – examining both the meaningful and meaningless on this journey in pursuit of pure wisdom and self-actualization? Regardless of the answer, isolation is the constant companion of those who set upon this quest to quench the thirst for wisdom.

There are no sigils or talismans to protect on the lonely and perilous expedition. The culmination of this crusade is surely a slow and methodical death to reveal the mysteries of life.

Therefore think of me and offer up one last prayer for the dying. May peace and your perfect Heaven await.

Adiuva me verterem figuram mundi

Featured image by: by Ceri Westcott “Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder”